Hello guys,
first of all I want to say hi at this great forum. Now to the topic:
I have both sRGB&AdobeRGB LCDs, and Epson HDR-ink printer. So far, once a time a guy came in, do calibration and profiles and thats it. Now, I would like to do certified proofs of my work and also to be short, I would like to have the whole process of calibration and profiling "in-house" under my control and equipment. Except the LCD and the printer, I also have Epson projector and I also want to measure ambient lighting.
So the question is - which equipment to buy. The "easy" choice is probably the new X-rite i1 pro 2, which should handle all of my needs. But I red tons of reviews, and it seems that for monitors better are colorimeters, because Spectros are not good in dark end on LCD, and also that the dE is quite high, etc. And I need spectro for the print. If I consider basiccolor discus for circa 1300 USD, and i1 pro 2 for lets say 1700 USD, than we are on 3000 USD - and what I can see, around 5000 USD you can have devices called SpectroDensitoMeters, like X-rite 530 or Konica-Minolta FD-7. Here is the real question - can those devices do all the things like i1 pro 2, and if so, also with the significantly more accuracy than i1 pro 2?
The point is, that the monitors, printers, etc. are all expensive stuff, and I don't want these measurement devices to be weak points of my workflow. I don't want to spend 3k and one week later find out that I need more "pro" tool. Using this mainly in a pre-press environment, I should be able to win arguments that colors from me are "right" and the client or his printer is "wrong"
Any advices are more than welcome.
Thanks.
